Edward FitzGerald

“ Old Spedding supplies a beautiful Prose Overture to this delightful Volume: never was Critic more one with his Subject—or, Object, is it? Frederick Tennyson, my old friend, ought to have done something to live along with his Brothers: all who will live, I believe, of their Generation: and he perhaps would, if he could, have confined himself to limits not quite so narrow as the Sonnet. But he is a Poet, and cannot be harnessed.
I have still a few flowers surviving in my Garden; and I certainly never remember the foliage of trees so little changed in October’s third week. ”

“ Here is a Day for entering on seventy-four! But I do think, notwithstanding, that I am not much the better for it. The Cold I had before Christmas, returns, or lurks about me: and I cannot resolve on my usual out-of-door liberty. Enough of that. I suppose that I shall have some Company at Easter; my poor London Clerk, if he can find no more amusing place to go to for his short Holyday; probably Aldis Wright, who always comes into these parts at these Seasons—his ‘Nazione’ being Beccles. ”

“ What inspires me now is, that, about the time you were writing to me about Burns and Béranger, I was thinking of them ‘which was the Greater Genius?’—I can’t say; but, with all my Admiration for about a Score of the Frenchman’s almost perfect Songs, I would give all of them up for a Score of Burns’ Couplets, Stanzas, or single Lines scattered among those quite imperfect Lyrics of his. Béranger, no doubt, was The Artist; which still is not the highest Genius—witness Shakespeare, Dante, Æschylus, Calderon, to the contrary. Burns assuredly had more Passion than the Frenchman ”

“ But then they are old Friends; and are not their Children, Executors and Assigns, as little to be depended on as your own Kith and Kin? Well; I bethink me of one of your old Friends’ Children whom I could reckon upon for you, as I would for myself: Mowbray Donne: the Son of one who you know loves you of old, and inheriting all his Father’s Loyalty to his Father’s Friends. ”

“ Kemble,
I ought to be much obliged to you for answering my last letter with an uneasy hand, as you did. So I do thank you: and really wish that you would not reply to this under any such pain: but how do I know but that very pain will make you more determined to reply? I must only beg you not to do so: and thus wash my hands of any responsibilities in the matter.
And what will you say when I tell you that I can hardly pity one who suffers from Gout; though I would undoubtedly prefer that you should be free from that, or any other ailment. ”

“ I don’t believe it was far otherwise with Shakespeare. Even old Wordsworth, wrapt up in his Mountain mists, and proud as he was, was above all this vain Disquietude: proud, not vain, was he: and that a Great Man (as Dante) has some right to be—but not to care what the Coteries say. What a Rigmarole!
Donne scarce ever writes to me (Twalmley the Great) , and if he do not write to you, depend upon it he thinks he has nothing worth sending over the Atlantic. I heard from Mowbray quite lately that his Father was very well. ”

“ No doubt your Papers will all be collected into a Book; perhaps it would have been financially better for you to have so published it now. But, on the other hand, you will have the advantage of writing with more freedom and ease in the Magazine, knowing that you can alter, contract, or amplify, in any future Re-publication. It gives me such pleasure to like, and honestly say I like, this work—and—I know I’m right in such matters, though I can’t always give the reason why I like, or don’t like, Dr. Fell: as much wiser People can—who reason themselves quite wrong. ”

“ Of his brothers and sisters I retain no knowledge, but with him I still keep up an affectionate and to me most valuable and interesting correspondence. He was distinguished from the rest of his family, and indeed from most people, by the possession of very rare intellectual and artistic gifts. A poet, a painter, a musician, an admirable scholar and writer, if he had not shunned notoriety as sedulously as most people seek it, he would have achieved a foremost place among the eminent men of his day, and left a name second to that of very few of his contemporaries. ”

“ I have not heard of Donne since that last letter of yours: but a Post Card from Mowbray, who was out holyday-making in Norfolk, tells me that he will write as soon as he has returned to London, which, I think, must be about this very time.
I shall be sorry if you do not get your annual dose of Mountain Air; why can you not? postponing your visit to Hampshire till Autumn—a season when I think those who want company and comfort are most glad of it. But you are determined, I think, to do as you are asked: yes, even the more so if you do not wish it. ”

“ Kemble,
The Moon has passed her Full: but my Eyes have become so troubled since Christmas that I have not written before. All Christmas I was alone: Aldis Wright came to me on New Year’s Day, and read to me, among many other things, ‘Winter’s Tale’ which we could not take much delight in. No Play more undoubtedly, nor altogether, Shakespeare’s, but seeming to me written off for some ‘occasion’ theatrical, and then, I suppose that Mrs. Siddons made much of the Statue Scene. ”

“ Oh, Sir Walter is not done for yet by Austens and Eliots. If one of his Merits were not his clear Daylight, one thinks, there ought to be Societies to keep his Lamp trimmed as well as—Mr. Browning. He is The Newest Shakespeare Society of Mr. Furnivall.
The Air is so mild, though windy, that I can even sit abroad in the Sunshine. I scarce dare ask about Donne; neither you, nor Mowbray—I dare say I shall hear from the latter before Christmas. ”

“ On September 11th, 1877, he wrote to me: ‘You ought to have Hugo’s French Shakespeare: it is not wonderful to see how well a German Translation thrives:—but French Prose—no doubt better than French Verse. When I was looking over King John the other day I knew that Napoleon would have owned it as the thing he craved for in the Theatre: as also the other Historical Plays:—not Love of which one is sick: but the Business of Men. ”

“ X. Woodbridge, May 1, [1873.]
Dear Mrs. Kemble,
I am very glad that you will be Photographed: though not by the Ipswich Man who did me, there are no doubt many much better in London.
Of course the whole Figure is best, if it can be artistically arranged. But certainly the safe plan is to venture as little as possible when an Artist’s hand cannot harmonize the Lines and the Lights, as in a Picture. And as the Face is the Chief Object, I say the safest thing is to sit for the Face, neck, and Shoulders only. ”

“ I see your capital Book is in its third Edition, as well it deserves to be. I see no one with whom to talk about it, except one brave Woman who comes over here at rare intervals—she had read my Atlantic Copy, but must get Bentley’s directly it appeared, and she (a woman of remarkably strong and independent Judgment) loves it all—not (as some you know) wishing some of it away. No; she says she wants all to complete her notion of the writer. Nor have I heard of any one who thinks otherwise: so ‘some people’ may be wrong. ”

“ I wonder if your American Winter has transformed itself to such a sudden Summer as here in Old England. I returned to my Woodbridge three weeks ago: not a leaf on the Trees: in ten days they were all green, and people—perspiring, I suppose one must say. Now again, while the Sun is quite as Hot, the Wind has swerved round to the East—so as one broils on one side and freezes on t’other—and I—the Great Twalmley [75b] —am keeping indoors from an Intimation of Bronchitis. I think it is time for one to leave the Stage oneself.
I heard from Mowbray Donne some little while ago ”

“ Well—I am expecting Aldis Wright here at Easter: and a young London Clerk (this latter I did invite for his short holiday, poor Fellow!) . Wright is to read me ‘The Two Noble Kinsmen.’
And now I have written more than enough for yourself and me: whose Eyes may be the worse for it to-morrow. I still go about in Blue Glasses, and flinch from Lamp and Candle. Pray let me know about your own Eyes, and your own Self; and believe me always sincerely yours
Littlegrange.
I really was relieved that you did not write to thank me for the poor flowers which I sent you. ”

“ Kemble,
I scarce think, judging by my old Recorder the Moon, that it is a month since I last wrote to you. But not far off, neither. Be that as it may, just now I feel inclined to tell you that I lately heard from Hallam Tennyson by way of acknowledgment of the Programme of a Recital of his Father’s verse at Ipswich, by a quondam Tailor there. ”

“ At that time he looked something like the Hyperion shorn of his Beams in Keats’ Poem: with a Pipe in his mouth. Afterwards he got a touch, I used to say, of Haydon’s Lazarus. Talking of Keats, do not forget to read Lord Houghton’s Life and Letters of him: in which you will find what you may not have guessed from his Poetry (though almost unfathomably deep in that also) the strong, masculine, Sense and Humour, etc., of the man more akin to Shakespeare, I am tempted to think, in a perfect circle of Poetic Faculties, than any Poet since. ”

“ Kemble,
Here I am back into the Country, as I may call my suburb here as compared to Lowestoft; all my house, except the one room—which ‘serves me for Parlour and Bedroom and all’ [108a] —occupied by Nieces. Our weather is temperate, our Trees green, Roses about to bloom, Birds about to leave off singing—all sufficiently pleasant. I must not forget a Box from Mudie with some Memoirs in it—of Godwin, Haydon, etc., which help to amuse one. And I am just beginning Don Quixote once more for my ‘pièce de Résistance,’ not being so familiar with the First Part as the Second. ”

“ Spedding has sent me the concluding Volume of his Bacon: the final summing up simple, noble, deeply pathetic—rather on Spedding’s own Account than his Hero’s, for whose Vindication so little has been done by the sacrifice of forty years of such a Life as Spedding’s. Positively, nearly all the new matter which S. has produced makes against, rather than for, Bacon: and I do think the case would have stood better if Spedding had only argued from the old materials, and summed up his Vindication in one small Volume some thirty-five years ago. ”

“ I shall soon be going to Lowestoft, where one of my Nieces, who is married to an Italian, and whom I have not seen for many years, is come, with her Boy, to stay with her Sisters.
Whither are you going after you leave Hampshire? You spoke in your last letter of Scarboro’: but I still think you will get over to Switzerland. One of my old Friends—and Flames—Mary Lynn (pretty name) who is of our age, and played with me when we both were Children—at that very same Aldeburgh—is gone over to those Mountains which you are so fond of: having the same passion for them as you have. ”

“ I have been reading Comus and Lycidas with wonder, and a sort of awe. Tennyson once said that Lycidas was a touchstone of poetic Taste.
LXXIII. Woodbridge: March 28, [1880.]
My dear Mrs. Kemble,
No—the Flowers were not from me—I have nothing full-blown to show except a few Polyanthuses, and a few Pansies. These Pansies never throve with me till last year: after a Cartload or two of Clay laid on my dry soil, I suppose, the year before. Insomuch that one dear little Soul has positively held on blowing, more or less confidently, all winter through; when even the Marigold failed. ”

“ The up-looking one I call ‘The Statesman,’ quite ready to be called to the Helm of Affairs: the Down-looking one I call The Philosopher. Will you take which you like? And when next old Spedding comes your way, give him the other (he won’t care which) with my Love. ”

“ When I get home, I will send you an old Scratch by Thackeray of yourself in Louisa of Savoy—shall I?)
On the whole, I find Macready (so far as I have gone) a just, generous, religious, and affectionate Man; on the whole, humble too! One is well content to assure oneself of this; but it is not worth spending 28s. upon.
Macready would have made a better Scholar—or Divine—than Actor, I think: a Gentleman he would have been in any calling, I believe, in spite of his Temper—which he acknowledges, laments, and apologizes for, on reflection.
Now, here is enough of my small writing for your reading. ”

“ On July 16 FitzGerald wrote to me: ‘Not being assured that you were back from Revision, I wrote yesterday to Cowell asking him—and you, when returned—to call on Professor Goodwin, of American Cambridge, who goes to-morrow to your Cambridge—to see—if not to stay with—Mr. Jebb. Mr. Goodwin proposed to give me a look here before he went to Cambridge: but I told him I could not bear the thought of his coming all this way for such a purpose. I think you can witness that I do not wish even old English Friends to take me except on their way elsewhere: and for an American Gentleman! ”

“ In America this gentleman is better known by his translation or adaptation (how much more of it is his own than the author’s I should like to know if I were Irish) of Omar Khayyám, the astronomer-poet of Persia. Archbishop Trench, in his volume on the life and genius of Calderon, frequently refers to Mr. Fitzgerald’s translations, and himself gives a version of Life’s a Dream, the excellence of which falls short, however, of his friend’s finer dramatic poem bearing the same name, though he has gallantly attacked the difficulty of rendering the Spanish in English verse. ”

“ I do not know if you are in London or in your ‘Villeggiatura’ [13a] in Kent. Donne must decide that for me. Even my Garden and Fields and Shrubs are more flourishing than I have yet seen them at this time of Year: and with you all is in fuller bloom, whether you be in Kent or Middlesex. Are you going on with your Memoir? Pray read Hawthorne. I dare say you do not quite forget Shakespeare now and then: dear old Harness, reading him to the last!
Pray do you read Annie Thackeray’s new Story [13b] in Cornhill? ”